Punctuation and poetry

Different from the rhythm in the movement, another acoustic element in poetry fo-cuses on a supra-segmental dimension in written language. Although it remains immobile, it can also participate in the signification of the speech in an oral way (Dessons, 1998, p.

46). It is the punctuation. It controls the pause of the sound, the relation between words and verses, and the emotional power in the poetic text. Composed of various marks ready for separating groups of words, punctuation was established to obey the logic rules in speech in order to clarify its significance. Nevertheless, it could be detached from the logi-cal rail and altered because of the concurrent rhythm in poetry. As we mentioned before, rhythm is a contradictory unity in which readers intend to coordinate the speech-versification relation. Therefore, it is the task of punctuation to go back and forth between logical rules and rhythmic effects of the texts.

Modern poetry has the tendency to escape from the logical aspect of punctuation in its pursuit of more freedom. To attain the object, it gradually adopts the non-linearity and the blank as a new representation of punctuation other than « la ponctuation noire »(the black punctuation)¹⁰³. According to Jaffré, the contemporary poetry has offered us a labora-tory of language where we could be pushed to study punctuation to a more expanded limit (Dessons, 1998, p. 57). This tendency could be immediately detected from two poets who belong to the neighboring centuries as below. From the poem of Verlaine, we could clearly observe that the punctuation concentrates more on the logic layout of the poem: pause in speech, emotions as hesitation and exclamation…the space in-between serves to isolate the verse lines in order to present the poem more neatly; the poem of André du Bouchet, however, pays more attention to the layout of the page: the black punctuation shrinks and makes way for other types of punctuations: non-linearity and blank for example in this poem. The new significance brought by punctuation sometimes collides with the orality, sometimes joins the orality, bringing a new revolutionary era for readers.

Figure 4 -Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) Figure 5 -André du Bouchet (1924-2001)

The form of punctuation in modern poetry tends to transfer from explicit signs to implicit layout in text. What we see on the page is the reduction, sometimes the

103 This term was put forward by Michel Favriaud. In his plura-system of punctuation, he has named several types of punctuation in poetic texts: the black punctuation (la ponctuation noire), the blank punctuation (la ponctuation blanche), the grey punctuation (la ponctuation grise) etc.

ance of explicit punctuation marks, not the reduction or disappearance of punctuation itself. We have to pay attention that this tendency does not lead to an absolute non-punctuation, but a transformation of organizational order in poetry. This tendency, in fact, has released, or even expanded the responsibility of punctuation marks in the semantic organizations in poem. From this moment, the significance in poetry is no longer fully de-cided by logical syntax marked by explicit punctuation signs. It could also be influenced by these implicit elements: the blank between lines, the symmetry of certain verses, or even the images in poetry—the calligram (detailed in the last session) etc.

The typography and the layout of poetry have demanded its readers for longer and more variable attention on distinguished punctuation forms, thus elaborated the reading of poetry. As Aragon put it, « permettre certain jeux de l’esprit » and « faire accepter deux sens conjoints du vers » are two principal effects that came along (Favriaud, 2011c, p. 83). In this way, the semantic significances between distinctive linguistic elements in poetry are diversi-fied when punctuated differently, readers are therefore supposed to select their own ver-sions of interpretations. The same rule applies to a more enriched and beneficial diction for readers (see last session).

Si vous ne ponctuez pas, vous ne pouvez pas écrire vos vers de la même manière : vous les écrivez de façon à éviter entièrement toute équivoque, ou au contraire parfois pour permettre certain jeux de l’esprit, et faire ac-cepter deux sens conjoints du vers¹⁰⁴ (Aragon, 1983).

Dessons has explicated the relation between the form (including the typography and the layout of poetry) and the significance in poetry: the former is never secondary to the latter. In fact, the form of poetry has endowed a pure aesthetic value through its graphic presentation. In turn, the form itself is non-significant; its contribution must be cooperated with the significance of the poetic text (Dessons, 1998, p. 64). As typical modern punctua-tion, the typography and the layout have assumed their roles of exploiting every semantic possibility in poetry through the form of poetry. The realization of these semantic possi-bilities is often reflected in an oral manner: word’s position on page may correspond to its

104 If you do not punctuate, you can not write your verses in the same way: you write them in such a way as to completely avoid any ambiguity, or sometimes to allow certain games of the mind, and to accept two joint senses of the verse(Translated by DL).

intonation, the symmetry of verses may demand a similar description of rhythm, the isola-tion of certain words may imply a particular sound in dicisola-tion etc. Favriaud pointed out « une trace mentale de type sonore » (a mental trace of sound: accent, intonation etc.) in punctuation. He referred that the punctuation is not only related to space and iconicity but also with the sound space and accentuation (Favriaud, 2012). The link between punctuation and sound is affirmed. Although presented visually as the signs in poetry, because of this link we decided to settle it under the « acoustic facet of poetry ».

One of the most pregnant effects in typography on oral reading is what we call the blank. Its oral counterpart is usually translated as the silence of sound. Claudel described: « ce rapport entre la parole et le silence, entre l’écriture et le blanc, est la ressource par-ticulière de la poésie, et c’est pourquoi la page est son domaine propre »¹⁰⁵ (Dessons, 1998, p. 67). He obviously confirmed the existence of the correspondences between blank in writing and silence in sound. Instead of being considered as emptiness or meaningless, blank on page is supposed to occupy its own place, even as a particular resource of sound, in poetic texts. Except for the oral effect of blank, it also contributes enormously to the graphic organization in poetry.

In fact, the blank itself is nothing new in poetry. Even in the traditional organization of poetic text, we can often observe its participation as the space between words and lines, the page margins, the space around titles etc. The expansion of blank in modern poetry covers a more comprehensive linkage with distinguished linguistic units in poetry, with verses, stanza, and text…or certain temporary units (what Favriaud called the « floating units »). That’s why Favriaud commented on blank as partly conventional yet partly idio-syncratic (Favriaud, 2012). This special facility of blank actually establishes a bond between the logic syntax of phrases and the graphic characteristic of typography. This bond is how-ever not a compromise but a reconstruction of poetry: « une architecturation d’unités cursives »(an architecture of discursive units) (Favriaud, 2012). With the blank, these dis-cursive units will have ample space to float, accumulate or disperse, and finally construct a multi-dimensional and multi-semantic (orality) architecture of poetry.

105 this relation between speech and silence, between writing and white, is the particular resource of poetry, and that is why the page is its own domain(Translated by DL).

La poésie est ainsi la pratique potentiellement la plus polysémique et la plus ouverte à l’interprétation de tous les discours, littéraires ou non, parce qu’elle est fondamentalement un travail sur les niveaux d’architecturation du discours, lesquels sont figurés principalement par la ponctuation maintenant considérée dans son plurisystème étendu et non plus seulement dans son pré carré noir¹⁰⁶ (Favriaud, 2012).